So, we started this journey eighteen years ago now. Through a series of circumstances, we found ourselves in a situation we never could have predicted. The system had failed us, and we had pulled our oldest son out of public school.

The ensuing years have been bumpy and blessed. Some of the bumps have been more like huge mountains, seemingly insurmountable. Some days have been too short, and others too long. But the blessings have been more than anything I could have imagined.

I am officially ready to confess the following:

1. I am addicted. This journey has given me a front row seat to the work of God. I tell you, I have seen miracles. I have experienced miracles. I have come to know God, not just know about Him. Through this journey God has become real to me. He has become real to my children. I get to see Him everyday—in little things and in big things. He is right here with us everyday and all through the day. We know we need Him, and He glories in our need for Him.

2. I am grateful. I did not want to home school my kids. I made fun of home schooling and home schoolers. I was not gracious or kind. I didn’t understand, so I criticized. Now I am so thankful that God orchestrated circumstances that brought us to the decision to home school. His drawing us into home education was His drawing us further into relationship with Himself. Here on this path, which has been lonely and where we have often been misunderstood, He has always been close. He has directed, encouraged, and strengthened us along the way.

3. I am not perfect. If I didn’t know this before today, I know it now. In many ways I thought I had it going on before we started home schooling. I really did. I had a plan, of which I was the center. Like most of us, I knew I was imperfect, but I worked diligently to avoid facing or dealing with that fact. Hiding and denying my inadequacies dominated my actions. Maintaining an illusion was the focus. Now I know that my imperfections are where God shows up the mightiest and I am no longer fearful. My imperfections and weaknesses are now where He can display His strength.

4. I do not have it all figured out. When we first started, I thought figuring it all out was the objective. I thought that I would plan out the ideal educational method (including curriculum) for all of the children and then just work the plan. I didn’t take into account that my children are individuals. I wanted a formula. There were many for sale. But they didn’t work. Now I know that home schooling is a faith journey. It isn’t about figuring it all out. It is about trusting God and walking by faith.

5. I am confident. My confidence is not in a curriculum, in an educational plan, or in myself. No, my confidence is squarely where God has intended it to be all along—in Him. I am confident in His good, pleasing, and perfect will. I am confident that I can trust Him to continue to be faithful. I am confident that He is in control and that He is sovereign. This confidence means that I can relax and rest in Him. I need not panic. He is faithful!

I’m a home schooling mom just like you. Every day is a challenge. No matter how much I plan, things happen. Challenges and obstacles abound. And yet this I know: “He is able to keep that which I’ve committed until that day.” I pray “that day” is fast approaching, but until then, I choose to worship and trust Him! He is worthy!

Let’s say you parachuted into the middle of Central Park in New York City and were told by a mysterious stranger, “There is a $5,000 diamond necklace waiting for you at Tiffany and Co. and it’s yours free on one condition: You have to claim it in the next twenty minutes, or the deal is off.”

Your heart begins pounding. You feel your pocket—smart phone must have fallen out during the jump. You’ve never been in New York City before. You can’t just wander around. You have twenty minutes.

Obviously you’d ask for directions. But who do you ask? And what happens if they are wrong? You could ask more than one person, just to be sure. But what if their answers conflict?

If you want the necklace, you’ll have to figure it out before your time runs out.

Five Questions, Five World-Changing Answers

Some things about the search for the Tiffany and Co. necklace are very much like real life. People who figure out what works in life are rewarded. And there is a time limit—one out of every one person dies (you’ve probably noticed). There is a real world with real rules.

Yet confusion reigns, even among young adults raised in households of faith:

Only one in five young adults ages 12-22 has a sense of purpose in life.[1]

Twenty-five percent of young adults are at risk of not achieving productive adulthood.[2]

Young Christians are disengaging from their faith, embracing instead what sociologist Christian Smith calls “liberal whateverism.”[3]

Home schooling families are not immune. If our children are to stand for truth in a world of lies, they must see the Bible as more than just a guide for morality or an anesthetic to help people with a low pain tolerance get through life.

In my experience, parents who raise spiritually healthy kids show their children through instruction and lifestyle that the Bible forms answers to the five questions that every human asks:

Where do we come from? We are created to bear God’s image.

Who are we? All humans have intrinsic worth and dignity.

What is real and true, and how do we know? Purpose is not just contrived. God has a plan for us, and we can find it.

How should we live? God’s rules for life lead to a much better life than what popular culture can deliver.

What happens next? God’s redemption does more than just qualify us for heaven; it makes a difference in how we live now.

Hope for Your Family, Hope for the World

Psalm 78 is a psalm of hope—a hymn about gaining courage to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. It says, “Give ear, O my people, to my teaching. . . . We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and His might, and the wonders that He has done.”

At the end of the day this is what home schooling is all about: giving our children hope that there is a right way to go in life—a way of wisdom, a way of life—and that those who walk in it can be a powerful source of light in a dark time.

Throughout history it was Christians who believed the biblical answers to life’s ultimate questions who established free-market economies, liberated the oppressed from tyrannical governments, elevated the status of women, built hospitals and schools, instituted ministries to the poor, and ended chattel slavery.[4]

Putting our hope in God gives us the opportunity to share hope with our children, who can then share it with the world.

[1] See William Damon, The Path to Purpose (New York: Free Press, 2009).
[2] Commission on Children at Risk, Hardwired to Connect: The Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities (New York: Institute for American Values, 2003).
[3] Christian Smith (2011), “Religious Tolerance: Karma, Christ, Whatever,” Huffington Post (9/16/11); Gary Railsback, Dean of the School of Education, Point Loma Nazarene University, “An investigation of the faith commitment of Evangelical college students at secular and Evangelical colleges,” found that between 30 and 50% of young adults who claim to be born again Christians as college freshmen claim to not be born again Christians when they graduate; “LifeWay Research Uncovers Reasons 18 to 22 Year Olds Drop Out of Church” found that 75% of students who were significantly involved in church in high school are no longer even attending church as twentysomethings: http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/article_main_page/0,1703,A=165949&M=200906,00.html
[4] Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 291. The entirety of Stark’s chap. 4, “God’s Justice: The Sin of Slavery,” should be carefully studied by all Christians.

Not long ago I overheard a group of young people talking. They spoke a type of dialect-English that is often used by members of their generation.

“She was, like, ‘You’ve got to try this.’ And I was, like, ‘Are you serious?’ And she was, like, ‘You totally won’t believe it.’ And I was, like, ‘I’ve got to get one!’”

It really bothered me to hear good, educated middle class kids talking this way, and maybe that was one of their reasons for doing it. I was the old guy in the group, and maybe they switched over to dialect as a way of asserting their . . . whatever it is that a generation feels it needs to assert: uniqueness, independence, coolness.

America is a land where youth never tire of outraging their elders, and it has been going on for a long time. My sweet sister used Elvis Presley records as an incendiary device on our Bach-loving father, and it worked every time. The louder she cranked up “Jailhouse Rock,” the bigger the explosion.

There was more to my response to the kids than generational sword play. In my depths, I felt that these delightful, intelligent young people were inflicting damage on the language of Abraham Lincoln, Shakespeare, and the King James Bible—and they weren’t even aware of it. They were just high school kids, trying to figure out how to hitch a ride on the bullet train of popular culture, trying to fit in and be “normal.”

At their age I too yearned to be normal. Yet, for educated people, being normal must include an instinct to honor and protect the English language. Living languages evolve, but we should be very cautious about the changes we legitimize through constant use. English is our conduit to the founding documents of English-speaking civilization—the body of law, literature, and Scripture that shapes our understanding of what it means to be a God-made, civilized human being. The more we change the language of the present, the more difficult it is for us to retrieve a clear message from the past.

We should also bear in mind the observation of George Orwell as he watched the growing horror of the Nazi conquest of Europe: Political evil begins with the corruption of language. Obscure language provides cover for a scoundrel. Honest language gives us some protection. Honest language can be diagrammed. “Jesus wept” is a perfect sentence that any five-year-old can diagram and understand. We know who did the action and exactly what he did. That is not the case with, “She was, like, ‘You’ve got to try this.’” It is not clear at all what “she” did, and the sentence will confound anyone who tries to diagram it.

Our best defense against tyranny and the loss of cultural memory is a language that maintains honesty, simplicity, and clarity. The corruption of language does not begin with an act of Congress but instead with careless use and quiet neglect by people who should know better.

Dreaming is a gift, a delightful part of childhood. Dreaming of being a teacher, a fireman, a policeman, an astronaut—and even a superhero—is essential to the preparation of a child’s future. However, without clear direction, focused cultivation, and consideration for others, dreaming will lead a child to wander aimlessly.

Ever since I was a child, I was told that I was a dreamer, and it is true—I really was a daydreamer. My dreams reached their pinnacle in math class, history class, science class, and English class. The only class in which I was not daydreaming was gym class! As a child, dreaming was merely a way for me to escape. With no direction, I wandered; with no focus, life was a blur. My dreams remained a muddle of wishful thinking that benefited no one. Years later, through the influence of the Word of God, daydreaming merged into a visionary gift that opened doors of unimaginable proportions.

If you have a child who is a dreamer, he possesses a gift that needs a little direction and a lot of training. In the book of Genesis we read about another dreamer. His name was Joseph. In chapter 37 we read, “A man found Joseph wandering in the fields. And the man asked him, ‘What are you seeking?’” As a youth, God had given Joseph a unique gift: the ability to see the future. Yet Joseph, like most youth even in modern times, spent quite a bit of time “wandering” before he was able to skillfully exercise his God-giftedness for the benefit of others.

Joseph’s self-centeredness got him into a lot of trouble; not only did his brothers hate him, but even his father became unsettled when he realized that Joseph may be taking his air of superiority too far (Gen 37:10). But in my opinion it was Joseph’s dad who was partly to blame because he encouraged his son’s prideful self-centeredness through partiality (Gen 37:3-4). It is important that parents do not flatter their children when they observe obvious talents in them. Rather than emphasizing a child’s talents, parents should celebrate a child’s hard work and effort.

Even today children who are recognized as possessing extraordinary abilities—as opposed to extraordinary effort—have a greater tendency to become prideful and apathetic, relaxing their effort as they reach their adult years. This tendency hinders the advancement of their giftedness. In order to substantiate this conjecture, Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck gave 400 seventh graders a set of relatively easy puzzles to assemble and then divided the students into two groups. The first group was told, “You must be smart at this!” The second group was told, “You must have worked really hard!” Then each child was offered the opportunity to take a follow-up test that included either another set of easy puzzles or a much harder set of puzzles. More than fifty percent of the kids praised for their intelligence chose the easy set of puzzles, and an astounding ninety percent of the kids praised for their hard work chose the more difficult puzzles.[1]

When God’s gifts are used to build our own self-centered dreams, without the foundation of mature spiritual discernment and persevering practice, we wander from the plan and purpose that God has designed. Hebrews 5:13-14 states, “. . . [E]veryone who lives on milk is unskilled in the Word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” Joseph possessed a gift to see the future, but he lacked the spiritual discernment to know how to use this gift for God’s glory and the benefit of others.

So how does God help wandering dreamers to see clearly? Like Joseph, when we enroll in the school of testing, our inner directional compass begins to realign. Our clouded vision is no longer obscured. In Psalm 105 David writes that God “sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. His feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron; until what he had said came to pass, the Word of the Lord tested him.” The Hebrew word for “tested” here means “to fuse metal” or “to refine, purify, or purge away like a goldsmith.” As a metaphor it carries the idea of proving or examining someone.[2]

Only after years of discipline and suffering could Joseph understand that the “bowing down” of his brothers (Gen. 42:6) was an opportunity to provide and protect, not to lord over them. God used abandonment, imprisonment, and betrayal to refine Joseph’s vision for the future. Once he realized that his dreams were God-given gifts for the benefit of others, the vision for his future ministry became clear. Through his gift of dreaming, Joseph would now pave the way for his family and nation to see God’s redeeming love!

Dreams coupled with discernment lead to deliverance. When we use our gifts for the benefit of others, our dreams will come true in ways we never dreamed possible.

Mark Hamby is the founder and president of Lamplighter Ministries, where he serves with a dedicated staff to make Lamplighter Publishing, Lamplighter Theatre, Lamplighter Guild, Lamplighter Life-Transforming Seminars, and Lamplighter Moments Daily Radio Broadcast a reality. It is his mission to make ready a people prepared for the Lord by building Christ-like character—one story at a time. You can read or listen to the most recent Lamplighter production at www.lamplighter.net and www.lamplighterguild.com. Mark will be a keynote speaker at the 2013 THSC Southwest Convention & Family Conference this August in The Woodlands.

Books to Read:

For Children 6-11

The Bible (Hebrews 5)

Basil: Honesty and Industry by Charlotte O’Brien

Jack the Conqueror by Mrs. C.E. Bowen

For Children 10-13

The Bible (Hebrews 5)

Brave Heart by Franz Hoffman

The Lamplighter by Maria S. Cummins

For Teens and Adults

The Bible (Hebrews 5)

Hand on the Bridle by Kathleen M. Macleod

Ishmael and Self-Raised by E.D.E.N. Southworth

That Printer of Udell’s by Harold Bell Wright

Falsely Accused by Frederick Vining Fisher

Videos to Watch:

The Experience of a Lifetime

[1]The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk. In his book Shank dismantles the controversy of natural ability versus extraordinary effort through a myriad of examples and convincing research.

As an Australian now living near Cincinnati, Ohio, growing up “down under” offered some unique experiences, including the time I once talked to an old Australian aboriginal elder. This aborigine recalled roaming the deserts with his family many years ago in their tribal state. This old man had since become a Christian. He remembered that as a little boy—bound in that spiritist, anti-God culture—he asked his father one day, “What is God like, Father?”

He said his father turned to him and, after a long pause, said, “I don’t know, Son. We’ve forgotten.”

His father had forgotten because his father before him had forgotten. Their ancestors had known, but somewhere in their ancestry, a father had not passed on the truth about the God of creation to the next generation.

Many passages in the Bible command fathers to teach their children so that the correct information is passed on to, and implemented by, the next generation (e.g., Isaiah 38:19; Ephesians 6:4). Passages like these prompted my wife Mally and me to home school all five of our children.

As I pondered my conversation with the Australian Aboriginal, I realized that this same problem is reflected not only within Christian families here in America but also in Christian education. As I have had the opportunity to speak in hundreds of churches and dozens of schools in America, I have noticed that Christians do not have enough knowledge to defend the basics of their faith, much less to a skeptical generation.

In addition, from my experience in reviewing various Christian textbooks and in visiting Christian schools, this is what I have largely discovered (with some happy exceptions): They basically take a secular way of thinking and just stamp God’s Word on it. In other words, they merely put Bible verses in the textbooks. Then we wonder why our young people do not have a Christian worldview.

Now, according to the Bible, who is supposed to be the primary educator of children? It is the father (except, of course, when mothers are forced to raise their children without a father). One of the greatest problems in Christian homes today is that most husbands and fathers do not carry out their God-commanded responsibility to be the spiritual head of their family and to train their children. Instead, they leave it to others.

In America and other parts of the Western world today, it is sad to hear a father and mother assume, “Oh, the kids are going to church and Sunday school, and we have them in a Christian school setting, so they’ll be fine.” All Christian parents should be making sure their young people are getting their Bible teaching and Christian worldview training from home—from studying the Word of God as a family, and then also using home or traditional Christian schooling (though you still have to be very careful with the latter), plus solid Bible preaching in church, of course.

Seeing the world through biblical glasses

Training children means much more than just daily Bible reading; it means sharing a Christian worldview about everything, all the time (See Deuteronomy 6:7), as naturally as breathing. In every interaction, parents can help teach children a Christian way of thinking.

Most children from Christian homes are being trained in a secular worldview, to which “God” may be added by the parents at home and in church. But you cannot Christianize a secular philosophy, which is what even a lot of Christian texts and schools try to do. Unfortunately, even those books that are “anti-evolution” often fall into this error, especially if they do not present the positive case for Genesis creation. These children often end up thinking in a secular way, with God and the Bible as merely “add-on extras,” rather than being relevant ultimately to everything and the supreme authority.

Let me give you a little test. I believe it would be a real eye-opener for many home school parents and their children. Our experience at AiG (Answers in Genesis) has shown that the majority of Christian parents and teachers could not answer most of these questions:

What is the best evidence you would use to defend your belief that there is a God who created the world?

Where did Cain find his wife?

When did the dinosaurs live?

For what do scientists use Carbon-14?

Is creation a side issue or a foundational doctrine?

Unfortunately, many Christians today, when asked these same questions by their young people, give an answer similar to that of the father of the aboriginal elder quoted above: “I don’t know—we’ve forgotten.”

Here are very brief answers to the questions we posed. Every Christian parent should know the answers as they eventually send their young people into the world.

Evidence for a Creator God? The design and order of the universe, in particular living systems, demands an intelligent Designer. To deny the obvious signature of God in His creation is to be “without excuse” (Romans 1:20). Life is built on an information/ code system (DNA)—which can only arise from intelligence.

Where did Cain get his wife? Adam and Eve had “sons and daughters” (Genesis 5). Such unions were a problem by the time of Moses but were not a genetic problem so soon after creation.

What about the dinosaurs? The Bible reveals that land animals were created on day six of the creation week, along with people, about 6,000 years ago. There is much evidence (including in our Creation Museum) that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time.

Carbon-14? This dating method cannot date things to be millions of years old. This method, like all other dating methods, is based on fallible assumptions (e.g., that decay rates are constant, a starting belief that the Earth is very old, etc.).

Is not the creation/evolution controversy a side issue? Most of our Christian doctrine is based on Genesis, especially the definition of, and punishment for, sin, and man’s desperate need for a Savior to die in substitutionary payment for that sin. Not to accept Genesis as written is to undermine the authority of Scripture.

Full answers to these questions, and many more, can be found by visiting our popular website, AnswersInGenesis.org (which contains several thousand articles) or by visiting our high-tech Creation Museum near Cincinnati.

Ken Ham is the president of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum near Cincinnati. The author of several books and the host of the daily radio program “Answers,” Ken is the visionary behind the construction of a full-size Noah’s Ark near Cincinnati. Ken will be a Keynote Speaker at the 2013 THSC Southwest Convention & Family Conference this August in The Woodlands.

]]>http://www.thsc.org/2013/07/weve-forgotten/feed/0Success in the Artshttp://www.thsc.org/2013/07/success-in-the-arts/
http://www.thsc.org/2013/07/success-in-the-arts/#respondMon, 01 Jul 2013 13:00:11 +0000http://thsc.org/?p=9883When I speak to young people about writing, I wonder if they will have the discipline and fortitude to endure the years of hardship that most apprentice writers must experience. I also wonder if they will have the wisdom to cope with success, should it ever come their way.

As an aspiring author in the 1960s and ’70s, I had a powerful drive to succeed. If I had been pressed to define the term, I would have said that a successful author is one who is able to support himself and his family through his writing. He should be able to make a living with his craft.

But there was more to it. I began to notice that many of the “successful” people in creative fields suffered fractured lives that led them into depression, burnout, alcoholism, drug abuse, hedonism, and divorce—estrangement from faith, family, and community . . . everything that really mattered.

It seemed a cruel hoax. After an author, actor, musician, or artist had mastered his craft, after struggling and clawing his way to center stage, there he encountered a mockery of his ambitions, a dark mirror image that was, in fact, the direct opposite of success.

“Success” is a powerful concept in American culture. We are often described as “success-driven.” We want our children to succeed, and we use success as a standard to measure a life and a career. We might suppose that anything so important would have a clear definition, but that is not the case in artistic professions.

I think it is important that people in creative fields define themselves and their ambitions outside the context of popular culture. Popular culture offers fame and fortune but has no moral center. It is a fire that warms itself and uses artistic people as fuel. The fire burns hot for a while; then the ashes go to the dump.

It is a familiar story and should remind us of the question Jesus asked in Mark 8:36. To paraphrase: “What is left of you after you have become a star?”

Until fairly recent times, art was viewed as more than the self-expression of an individual. It served a community and had moral, ultimately religious, functions: to present a coherent vision of who we are as human beings and to provide guidance on how we should conduct ourselves in the short span of time we have on this earth.

The sense of community that nurtured and inspired artists in the past is hard to find in the present day, but it is not impossible. I have found remnants of it among people who try to view experience through the lens of a Christian worldview.

In such environments artistic people can find a purpose, an audience, and a professional identity (some call it a “vocation”) within the same stream of thought and belief that has nurtured great writers, composers, artists, and thinkers for the past two thousand years—four thousand, if we include our rich heritage from the Old Testament.

In that context, the artist serves something higher than himself. His art should be more than a summary of his lust, nightmares, and petty desires. And even though success in America is inextricably linked with money, success in the arts should deliver more than a fat bank account.

Christian artists must balance the needs of the flesh with the needs of the soul, bearing in mind that some things should not be put up for sale. If you are writing or performing for someone else’s children, while your own children live as orphans, you are not selling your talent; you are selling your children—your soul.

Further, there are some songs that maybe you should not sing, some books you should not write, some movie roles you should not take, and some words you should not say.

Popular culture might not understand that kind of thinking, but our grandparents’ generation would have had no problem understanding it. There are some things you should not do for money.

From a Christian perspective, something is amiss when the artist entertains his audience but corrupts himself and the people he loves. As Francis Schaeffer once observed, the artist’s ultimate work should be his own life.

Going to a home school convention (or any convention, for that matter) can be overwhelming. Hundreds upon hundreds of strangers milling around, all there for the same reason you are. Vendors and sessions to catch, a friend or two you want to see, money, meals, kids—it can be too much!

Being an introvert myself, these kinds of gatherings can really make me nervous. I don’t like crowds. Upon arrival it is my instinct to look around for places to hide. Can I just pick up my math, hear Ken Ham, and then slip away unnoticed? Doubtful.

However, something happened to change my perspective on conventions. I accidentally spoke to a stranger, and guess what? The stranger was really nice and interesting! So, the thought occurred to me: Maybe some of these other 800 people are nice and interesting too!

I formulated a plan. The next time I was going to go to a convention, I would just walk up to people and introduce myself. Weighing the possibility of death by embarrassment against the opportunity to meet more nice and interesting people, I decided the cost was worth it.

I am not going to lie—it wasn’t easy. I spent the few days before convention praying. I kept asking God to give me courage. I knew the key was to think of the other person before myself. If I was mostly interested in them and not in talking about myself, then what did I have to lose? All they could do was reject me; and if my interest was in them and not in myself, it didn’t matter. (. . . easier said than done!)

Armed with prayer and a little determination, I headed to the convention, dedicated to meeting three new people—just three. I wasn’t looking to win any world records in friendship. The first moment came in the registration line. We were winding through the ropes, waiting for our turns—stranger in front of me, stranger behind me. I should do it now. These people are STUCK here. I turned to the woman behind me (she was facing me, after all) and said, “Hi!” She smiled a tiny bit and turned slightly away from me.

Oh no, you don’t, lady. I risked my life saying hello to you.

“Are you from this area?” I asked. “How many kids are you home schooling? Is there a session this weekend that you really want to go to?” Eventually she started to talk a little, we made it to the front of the line, and we each went our own way. Whew! That torture was behind me. Absolute torture.

But here’s where it gets good. The rest of the weekend I would see her occasionally in passing. We’d smile at each other, and I would ask how this or that was going. No big, deep new relationship was likely to come of it, but I really enjoyed seeing her around.

My next victim was a woman sitting at a table alone. I decided, instead of sitting by myself, I would ask to sit at her table, introduce myself, and ask how she was doing. She was chattier than the first stranger, and we talked for about ten minutes. Not too hard. She was nice. Two down. Almost “home.”

Exhausted from my efforts, I planned to give myself a little reward. I told myself I didn’t have to talk to any more strangers for an hour. It was my version of a goldstar pat on the back. But the funny thing was, I seemed to have flipped a switch in my brain that said, “Talk to people you don‘t know,” and I couldn’t turn it off. I’d be standing in a vendor booth, minding my own business, when I hear a voice saying, “Have you tried this before?” and realize it was me trying to talk to a woman near me. Yes, I had become the obnoxious lady you do not want to be standing next to in line—all smiling and friendly and how-do-you-do.

Somehow, by the grace of God, my fear of opening up a conversation with a stranger had diminished. I was starting to feel like my new mission was to make people feel loved by God. I was, much to my surprise, starting to actually care about these people in a way I hadn’t before.

Now, several years later, I still struggle, but I am less fearful of turning to someone I don‘t know and saying hello. I have been rejected many times, and you know what? It barely even hurts. I just move on to the next unsuspecting target. I still have to tell myself before a big convention, “Make yourself talk to three people. Just three.”

And, like that first time, it never stops there. Once I get going, I’m the friendly girl that you want to avoid. Don’t sit next to me. I will ask you questions. I will even pray with you if I’m feeling particularly daring.

The next time you go to a convention, pray first. Ask God for three people, just three, whom you can meet. And see where He takes it from there!

]]>http://www.thsc.org/2013/05/an-introvert-in-a-crowd/feed/0Letting Go of the Teacher in Youhttp://www.thsc.org/2013/05/letting-go-of-the-teacher-in-you/
http://www.thsc.org/2013/05/letting-go-of-the-teacher-in-you/#commentsWed, 01 May 2013 15:51:54 +0000http://thsc.org/?p=9891Ever think about quitting home schooling?

Yeah. Me, too. The question is: When you get to that point, what do you do next?

Take a look at a note from a mom who is right at that crossroads.

I am home schooling my two very active boys, ages seven and five, and I am stuck. I think the biggest reason I am stuck is that I taught special education in the public school system for nine years and I just have in my mind how our school day “should look,” and it doesn’t fit, and, honestly, home schooling is really frustrating and I don’t like it.I just can’t seem to break out of that and embrace what works best for us! I also think I have “too many” ideas and things I want to cover and have trouble focusing on what is best. –Losing Heart

Dear Losing Heart,

I have so been where you are. I understand your heavy heart. When I first began home schooling, I tried my best to make my school look and walk and talk like a traditional classroom. That was my model. I didn’t think it was a way to teach; I thought it was the way to teach—the only way. After all, if it wasn’t, why would teaching schools teach future teachers to use it? Thankfully, I hung in there, and with each passing year, my classroom grew more and more relaxed, less and less structured, and more and more able to follow the gifts and interests of my children.

This is a transition that almost every home schooling mom/teacher must make. We all start with what we know: the public school model. Admittedly, a few continue with that traditional model, but they are rare, and I believe that in doing so, they lose out on the many glorious options available to them and their children.

Here is the bad news: Moms who have been trained as teachers have the hardest time finding new models. You have already expressed this awareness, but you need to know you are not alone in this. It’s hard for everyone. It’s especially hard for teachers.

Keep in mind, the traditional model is not a bad one if you have twenty or so students and even more kids coming up the ranks. When the goal is to process a lot of children through a system, the public school model is not a bad one—but you’ll have to let some other things go. In that system, you cannot follow the strengths of the individual child; there isn’t time. There are too many other kids to consider. It’s an okay system for moving groups en masse through a process. However:

If a particular student takes an interest in rocketry and all the physics behind it, nothing can be done, because the whole class doesn’t share the interest and it’s not on the lesson plan.

If a particular student has a gift for writing and would love to delve into Shakespeare and all the unfamiliar richness of that older language, nothing can be done, because the whole class doesn’t share the interest and it’s not on the lesson plan.

If a particular child shows an early interest in chemistry and would love to play with a lab kit, learning about reactions and properties, nothing can be done, because the whole class doesn’t share the interest and it’s not on the lesson plan.

If a particular student just isn’t getting multiplication facts and needs three times the usual amount of time allotted to master it, nothing can be done, because the whole class doesn’t share the need and it’s not on the lesson plan.

In a traditional classroom, we move onward for the good of the majority; it makes sense to do so. Holding twenty-five kids back because of the needs or interests of one child does not make sense.

But in home schooling, it is not about the majority. It is about one child at a time.

(Can I get an “Amen”? J)

In home schooling you can follow delights. You can follow interests. You can address challenges. You can do pretty much anything that teaches a child that learning is fun and wonderful and lifelong, so before you give up, I would suggest you try different approaches. How about a unit study that focuses on something that absolutely delights your child?

Make models. Collect samples. Go on field trips. Watch kids’ documentaries. Read biographies of people who are into this subject. Role-play. Perhaps most importantly, find another home schooling mom who has already made this transition, and see if you can shadow her in her schooling for a week. Join together for a time. Share the school week or month. Watch what she does differently. Give yourself permission to step away from traditional, even if only for a month.

Should I Teach Subjects in Order?

When I first began home schooling I collected scope-and-sequence documents from around the country: public schools, private schools, expensive prep schools, schools for gifted students, and Montessori schools. I studied them to get a sense of the most comprehensive scope and sequence I could formulate for my own school. As a result, I made an amazing discovery: Other than a few essentials in learning to read, and of course, math, there wasn’t a clear path. Some schools studied earth science in fifth grade, and others studied life science. Some studied ancient Egyptians, while others were learning about Thomas Jefferson. Some learned metaphors and similes, while others were learning about proper citations. For almost everything, there was no clear chronology of learning.

This was a very freeing revelation for me. I realized that as long as they got the same information into their heads by the time they graduated, the method and sequence of how they got it could be completely of my choosing!

I was free to make learning delicious. This thought should liberate you from designing your school based on how it “should look.” Instead, apply a new method.

What would you need to do for your child to say, “That was wonderful! Can we do more?”

There it is. That should be your method. That should be your guide. If you started with that idea and changed just one lesson in your school day, you would see the difference. I suspect that soon you would change another and then another, until, before you knew it, learning in your school would be delicious. And you’d never want to stop.